Keep up to date with all things astronomy related with Astronomy Now magazine, which includes the UK's biggest and best night sky guide, an extensive news section, readers' astronomical images, book and equipment reviews, feature articles, a beginners' section and much more. For a sneak preview of this month's issue go to our magazine page.

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Shuttle Movies

The most complete source of video from the countdown, launch and mission of space shuttle Discovery is available here! Spaceflight Now's STS-121 archive includes more than 200 movies you can watch online or download to your computer.Video Collection

Concern increasing for
Mars rover Opportunity
Rover engineers are growing increasingly concerned about the temperature of vital electronics on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity while the rover stays nearly inactive due to a series of dust storms that has lasted for more than a month.FULL STORY

Shuttle Endeavour cabin leak being investigated
Engineers readying the shuttle Endeavour for the start of its countdown Saturday and launch next Tuesday on a space station assembly mission are wrestling with an apparent crew cabin leak that is proving difficult to isolate.FULL STORY

Supergiant star spews molecules needed for life
University of Arizona astronomers who are probing the oxygen-rich environment around a supergiant star with one of the world's most sensitive radio telescopes have discovered a score of molecules that include compounds needed for life.FULL STORY

Satellites unveil new type of active galaxy
An international team of astronomers using NASA's Swift satellite and the Japanese/U.S. Suzaku X-ray observatory has discovered a new class of active galactic nuclei.FULL STORY

Mars rovers still hunkered down to weather dust storm
NASA's Mars rovers continued to be plagued by a global dust storm Saturday, but both of the golf cart-sized craft produced more power than they consumed this week, according to the mission's chief scientist.FULL STORY

Gases escaping from Jupiter's moon Io studied
Boston University researchers have published the first clear evidence of how gases from volcanoes on a tiny moon of Jupiter can lead to the largest visible gas cloud in the solar system.FULL STORY

Planets with four parents?
How many stars does it take to "raise" a planet? In our own solar system, it took only one -- our Sun. However, new research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows that planets might sometimes form in systems with as many as four stars.FULL STORY

Chandra telescope catches 'piranha' black holes
Supermassive black holes have been discovered to grow more rapidly in young galaxy clusters, according to new results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. These "fast-track" supermassive black holes can have a big influence on the galaxies and clusters that they live in.FULL STORY

NASA's twin Mars rovers braving severe dust storms
Having explored Mars for three-and-a-half years in what were missions originally designed for three months, NASA's Mars rovers are facing perhaps their biggest challenge.FULL STORY

Star surface polluted by planetary debris
Looking at the chemical composition of stars that host planets, astronomers have found that while dwarf stars often show iron enrichment on their surface, giant stars do not. The astronomers think that the planetary debris falling onto the outer layer of the star produces a detectable effect in a dwarf star, but this pollution is diluted by the giant star and mixed into its interior.FULL STORY

Spitzer searches for the origins of life
Astronomers suspect the early Earth was a very harsh place. Temperatures were extreme, and the planet was constantly bombarded by cosmic debris. Many scientists believe that life's starting materials, or building blocks, must have been very resilient to have survived this tumultuous environment.FULL STORY

Galaxy Evolution Explorer spies band of stars
The Galaxy Evolution Explorer's ultraviolet eyes have captured a globular star cluster, called NGC 362, in our own Milky Way galaxy. In this new image, the cluster appears next to stars from a more distant neighboring galaxy, known as the Small Magellanic Cloud.FULL STORY

From dark obscurity: New Saturn moon comes to light
Like a hawk's eyes, the high resolution cameras on NASA's Cassini spacecraft have spotted yet another small, previously unknown moon circling giant Saturn and one which may indicate the existence of other small bodies in the same region.FULL STORY

'Blue Needle' presents new challenge for theorists
Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to study disks of debris around stars have found one that is extremely lopsided. While scientists are accustomed to finding asymmetrical accumulations of dust and larger bodies around stars, the debris disk around a star known as HD 15115 has a needle-like shape.FULL STORY

Satellites discover biggest collisions in the Universe
The orbiting X-ray telescopes XMM-Newton and Chandra have caught a pair of galaxy clusters merging into a giant cluster. The discovery adds to existing evidence that galaxy clusters can collide faster than previously thought.FULL STORY

Michio Kaku is professor of theoretical physics at City College New York. He is a best-selling author and TV presenter. Two of his most recent programs were shown on BBC Four and his latest book Physics of the Impossible (Allan Lane) is on sale now. Astronomy Now's Kulvinder Singh Chadha talks to the man who dreams about the impossible.READ MORE

2008 YearbookThis 132-page special edition features the ultimate observing guide for 2008, a review of all the biggest news stories, in depth articles covering all aspects of astronomy including astrophotography, the future of the Sun and space missions for 2008, and much, much more.U.K. STOREE.U. STOREU.S. & WORLDWIDE STORETake the tour!A 100-page special edition from the creators of Astronomy Now magazine, The Grand Tour of the Universe takes readers from one end of the Universe to the other and, in doing so, asks the question "just how big is the Universe?"U.K. STOREE.U. STOREU.S. & WORLDWIDE STOREInfinity RisingThis special publication features the photography of British astro-imager Nik Szymanek and covers a range of photographic methods from basic to advanced. Beautiful pictures of the night sky can be obtained with a simple camera and tripod before tackling more difficult projects, such as guided astrophotography through the telescope and CCD imaging.U.K. STOREE.U. STOREU.S. & WORLDWIDE STOREGuide to the ConstellationsAstronomy Now presents
this 100-page, full-colour guide to the 68 constellations visible from the British
Isles by Neil Bone, the respected amateur astronomer and writer.U.K. STOREE.U. STOREU.S. & WORLDWIDE STOREExploring MarsAstronomy Now is pleased to announce the publication of Exploring Mars. The very best images of Mars taken by orbiting spacecraft and NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers fill up the 98 glossy pages of this special edition!U.K. STOREE.U. STOREU.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE